Week 2

"The Lower 48"

Something I've noticed about Alaska is that they never refer to themselves as part of the United States. Whenever referring to a state or place that is not Hawaii they say that it is part of the "lower 48." This mind set is a small insight into their attitude. They are different, in a very good way. Although many of the people I've met here, as I mentioned in my previous post, are not native Alaskans they all have similar mannerisms. The first thing you'll notice when you meet an Alaskan is how open and nice they are. Their generosity and kindness is similar to that of Vermonters... but taken to an extreme. As my "boss" Sus put it on Monday, if you want to be an Alaskan after living in Alaska for a week... nobody questions you. They just accept you as part of the community. Of course this may just be the attitude of the farm and the people associated with it, but till proven wrong I will continue to believe that Alaskans are really great people.

This week was all work work work! I am now fully immersed in my job as the "field trip coordinator" for Calypso farm. Monday I wrote and sent out a fax notifying the schools in the Fairbanks area about our spring field trip offering "Spring on The Farm," and since then I've scheduled thirteen trips!!!
I don't quite have all the kinks worked out yet, but most of the program has already been set up. I just need to figure out how I can fit my expertise into running it. The field trip is broken into stations. I will meet each group at the bottom of the driveway and play a game with them to get them up. Then I explain how the field trip will run and the kids get a chance to see Tom do a goat milking demonstration. After that we break out into approximately three stations... depending on the age and number of kids. One station looks at the farms animals (goats, chickens, sheep, and bees), the next looks at seeds and plants in the greenhouse, and the last is a forest walk.
The difficulty right now is that the snow is melting extremely slowly!! So I need to make sure that the teachers dress their students appropriately. My first field trip is this coming Wednesday... so I have tried to make it clear that the kids NEED TO WEAR WEATHER APPROPRIATE CLOTHING! But I'm trying to think of a game plan for if they're not.

The other part of my job that I've been working on developing is outreaching for volunteers. Right now the farm is trying to get together what we're calling a "farm docent" program. So I'm going to a high school job fair this Tuesday with some flyers to see if any highschool students are interested. We are also putting together a volunteer information day for May 30, which I have unofficially termed "Volapalooza"!!

Well, for those of you who are sitting there saying OMG.. ENOUGH ABOUT WORK ALREADY... this blog is getting way too boring. I also had some time to go out and explore some of Fairbanks this week. It strikes me as a pretty odd city. Everything is very spread out, and although there's a bus system it is not very easy to get around without a bike. I've been spending most of my time near the University... and the Fred Meyer (the local Walmart). Last night I even stayed over in the University dorms with some of the Calypso staff living there. it was a very odd experience to be back in college dorms... especially after having spent two weeks living in a little structure surrounded by trees and washing myself with stove top heated water. I still don't know quite how I felt about it.

I also think that the phenomenon called the 'coffee hut' should be transferred to the lower 48! They are all over Fairbanks!! In short, they are drive through coffee shops. Beautiful. I haven't been through one yet... but I am hoping to soon. I will keep you all posted on that one ;).